Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/12/24

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

President's son found guilty on all charges in federal gun case

The contrast today is just staggering. Apparently, when a Republican is convicted, it's weaponization. But when a Democrat is convicted, the president's son, no less, that's justice. I mean, give me a break. Do Republicans still believe that President Biden is weaponizing the justice system? Because if he is, he's sure doing a lousy job. And as usual, the only Trump derangement syndrome going on around here is on the other side of the aisle. I mean, people are saying that Biden orchestrated the conviction of his own son

in order to justify the criminal charges against Trump. That is how you think when you are in a cult. That is how you think when you're in a cult. And, you know, we hear about situational ethics. In the case of Republicans, it's situational patriotism. That's right. They love the Justice Department when their opponents are being prosecuted. They love American democracy when their candidates win. But if they lose elections, suddenly they hate American democracy and they think it's corrupt. If Donald Trump is convicted of crimes, of felonies 34 times, suddenly they hate the justice system.

But, you know, if if it goes the other way for him. All right. Situationally, they're OK. It's such hypocrisy. Is it Biden's Justice Department being weaponized by Biden or is it not? Yeah. I mean, this lays bare everything that we've been saying on the show for many, many years now about the hypocrisy. I mean, when you look at the disappointment, frankly, for many Republicans about the outcome of this trial, they wanted to be able to say that there is a two-tiered system of justice, that the Justice Department is out to get Joe Biden, when in fact this jury came back very swiftly, by the way,

with a conviction on three counts against the son of the president of the United States. And consider the different responses from these two men. After Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts, he went crazy, of course counts, he went crazy. Of course, his supporters went crazy. They were coming after him. Joe Biden personally sent his goons to send Donald Trump to jail on and on and on. The system is rigged. You had prominent United States senators saying we're like Cuba now that the jury system is broken.

There were a third world country. Yesterday, President Biden put out a statement after his own son was convicted and may go to jail saying, my son, I'm proud of my son. I don't like the outcome here, but I respect the outcome and we'll work through this as a family. There is the difference. There it is. And what a stark difference in every way, in every way.

You go back to 2000 when Al Gore had every right to be angry at the outcome of the election. And what did you have Al Gore doing? Beautifully conceding. You can go back to 1960 and the Nixon folks, they knew in their mind that Illinois had been stolen. Richard Nixon decided in 1960 he wasn't going to tear America apart. He was going to accept the outcome. Now, of course, Pat Buchanan, when we asked him, Willie, why didn't you complain more about Illinois? Because historians say that it looks like Kennedy stole Illinois.

He said, because we stole Kentucky, Joe. Oh, my God. So maybe there were some shenanigans going on there. But the bigger point is that after the election, after these deeply personal fights where people and families give everything they have, these politicians in the past have become statesmen. Al Gore's finest moment. I mean, if you look through his career,

I was just blown away by his concession speech. It was extraordinarily moving and said what a lot of people said. If that guy had run, if we had seen more of that, he would have won the election in 2000. But here, it's all situational. With Trump supporters, and unfortunately, a contaminated Republican Party, especially in the House, if Trump wins elections, then democracy is fine.

If Trump loses elections, then American democracy is broken. If Trump is convicted, then the rule of law is corrupted and we're no better than Castro's Cuba. If Hunter Biden is convicted, well, yeah, well, the justice system works. Most people with basic values know that's wrong. Also, on Morning Show, we're going to we're going to obviously be going way deeper into the Hunter Biden verdict. We'll also break down new poll numbers that show who voters in key battleground states say they believe is best to handle the economy ahead of the November election. And Willie, on this front, we've been hearing for over a year now, Willie, that that somehow there was this huge gap on the economy and voters just would never trust Joe Biden.

Some polls are starting to show that massive gap is narrowing quickly. quickly and it's almost like in this a lot of economists a lot of political people have come on our show and said you know the economy is a leading indicator here american consumers will catch up probably by summertime well it's summer and they're catching up it's almost a dead tie in this latest poll on who you trust more on the economy yeah donald trump was enjoying a wide gap and some people thought that this would be despite all the economic data that shows how strong our economy is leading the world, the most resilient post-COVID economy in the world that almost had conceded that issue to Donald Trump. But this new polling shows, as you say, that Americans perhaps now are feeling that inflation, while very stubborn, does continue to tick down too slowly, but it does continue to

tick down and that all the other data, including unemployment and growth and the Dow Jones and all these other metrics by which we measure our economy, are moving in the right direction. And hopefully people are feeling that in their lives. And perhaps Joe Biden will benefit for that. It appears he is anyway, as you look at the growth there over the last couple of months. I'm making you look at the numbers. It's three and a half margin of error. You look at the numbers, it's practically a tie. Yep.

Also ahead, we're going to show you how the Sinclair broadcast group seems to be working hard to push dubious claims about Biden's mental fitness for office to millions of Americans. They just keep harping on it and perhaps don't realize that that plays right into the Biden team's hands. We'll talk about that. And Willie, just going back to yesterday, it's what The Washington Post wrote about on social media. But now you have an entire news network that runs local stations across America feeding lies and they are lies, deliberate lies. Sinclair is feeding deliberate lies to their viewers. I mean, if you if you really think that Joe Biden's out of it, you know what? You know,

take it straight on with your viewers. But they're deliberately lying and spreading misinformation. It appears from from these reports. We talk about Fox News and some of the other networks at the national level, but it's important to watch closely what people are getting in their living rooms at home on the local news. And there is a group that Mika just referenced, the Slair group that is literally writing a script for the anchors of certain affiliates, not all to read with an agenda. And we're going to play this clip that a reporter has put together of all of them literally saying the exact same thing about Joe Biden. It's pretty chilling. Wow. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way too early White House beer chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay and MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle.

And we begin with what comes next for Hunter Biden after a jury yesterday found him guilty on all three felony charges on his federal gun trial. The president's son had pleaded not guilty to the three counts tied to lying on a federal gun application about his drug use. Sources inside the defense room tell NBC News that following the verdict, Hunter Biden thanked everyone there by name, hugged them and tried to raise their spirits. He later issued this public statement, quote, I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome. The recovery recovery is possible by the grace of God. And I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time. Special counsel David Weiss spoke briefly to reporters following the verdict.

No one in this country is above the law. Everyone must be accountable for their actions, even this defendant. However, Hunter Biden should be no more accountable than any other citizen convicted of this same conduct. The prosecution has been and will continue to be committed to this principle and to the principles of federal prosecution in carrying out its responsibilities. Hunter Biden and his attorney have said they plan to appeal this verdict. As I mentioned, President Biden issued a statement reacting to the verdict in his son's gun trial. It reads in part, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.

Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that, end quote. Last week, the president said very clearly he will not pardon his son. President Biden also had an emotional reunion with Hunter late yesterday. The two hugged on the tarmac after the president changed his schedule and flew to Delaware following an event in Washington, Joe. Yeah, I just wonder, the prosecutor said that Hunter Biden shouldn't be treated differently than anybody else. So why was he? Because he was. If his last name was Smith, these charges would have never been brought. If his last name was Jones, they would have never blown up the plea deal that they already had done that the judge respected. I mean, you know, again, I'm a big believer.

It went to the jury and I believe in the system and we'll always believe in the system. But he doesn't need to come out and lie and say that Hunter Biden's being treated like everybody else because Hunter Biden is there because of his last name. End of story. And a lot of Trump people can say the same thing about what happened in Manhattan with Alvin Bragg. But in this case, Biden was there because of his last name and nothing else. And by the way, some Republicans have said the same, Joe. Senator Lindsey Graham said that last week, even had some very pro-Trump Republican members of Congress, again, as I said, disappointed, I think, by this outcome because they wanted to show a two-tiered system of justice, saying that this trial had always been kind of silly, that it was a distraction

for more serious things to look at with Hunter Biden. They're saying that now after the fact. Let's bring in former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Lisa, good morning. What's your reaction to the verdict in Delaware? My reaction, Willie, is that this is the paradigmatic both and situation. What I mean by that, right, is you can find that the jury's conviction here is just that Hunter Biden knowingly possessed and applied for a firearm, understanding that he had been an addict and that addiction is a continuing state, that it doesn't stop and start, but rather once an addict, always an addict. And at the same time, as Joe said, you can not only find this situation to be totally tragic, but believe that it never should have happened in the first time, as Joe said, you can not only find this situation to be totally tragic, but believe

that it never should have happened in the first place, that the plea deal that was engineered between the U.S. attorney's office and between Hunter Biden's then lawyers was one that should have been honored. And it fell apart principally for two reasons. It fell apart first because the prosecutors wouldn't commit themselves to saying that the plea deal fully resolved all possible investigations against Hunter Biden, including those under the Foreign Agent Registration Act stemming from his work in Ukraine. But the other reason it fell apart is because the judge who oversaw this trial, Mary Ellen Norica, bristled at the idea that she should have to supervise the question of whether Hunter would be in compliance with the diversion

agreement that was set up to handle the gun charges. And the reason that that deal was struck in the way that it was is an unspoken reason. And I'll tell you what it is. It's because the prosecutors here and Hunter Biden's lawyers feared that because the diversion agreement was two years in duration in a possible future Department of Justice controlled by Trump and or another Republican who was retributive against Hunter Biden, that that person would have an excuse to say Hunter Biden was out of compliance, that he deserved to be thrown in prison. They didn't want a future Republican DOJ to have control over that

decision. And therefore, in the plea agreement, they engineered it so that the judge would oversee that determination. When they presented the plea deal to her last July, she said, why should I be in control of that? That's not my decision to make. But what she didn't understand and what no one could say to her on the record is, we're doing it this way because we fear retribution against Mr. Biden if it's not set up this way, Your Honor. Lisa, could you speak to

the jury what happened yesterday, a jury trial? The son of the president of the United States of America is on trial in Delaware. His neighbors, Delaware residents, are sitting in judgment of him. Twelve ordinary people, citizens, sitting in judgment on the son of the president. The president doesn't interfere in this case. The president announces that he will not pardon his son. Hunter knows that he lied on the application. That's why he's there. At the end of the day, do you think ordinary Americans give enough thought to how this system is a miracle, a gift to this country, a gift to democracy, the jury system and the way it works. It worked in New York and it worked in Wilmington. And most of the time, Mike, it does work. I wish they would give more thought to the miracle that

is our jury system. It's endemic to the democracy that many of us believe is teetering on the brink right now. This is a testament to what is unshakable about our democracy. I was really struck by the three jurors who came forward yesterday and talked to members of the media, and one in particular, who essentially said to our Katie Turr yesterday, look, I think this case should have been prosecuted. I believe the charges should have been brought. I believe he was guilty of those charges. And yet, I believe jail time here

is entirely inappropriate because not only of how the charges came about, but because of some of the underlying facts here. This is a person who has brought his life around. He's married. He has a young son. He's earning a living. And the circumstances that led to the charges in the first place. Let's remember Hunter Biden owned a gun for 11 days. And the reason that the gun was ever recovered in the first place was because his sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, with whom he had been romantically involved, was so fearful that he might use the gun to harm himself that, unthinkingly, she took the gun and deposited it in a trash can outside a Wilmington grocer. That struck a chord with that particular juror. And again, paradigmatic both and situation. I believe this case should have been brought. I believe he was guilty of it. And yet I can see it as the

tragedy that it is. President Biden learned of the verdict while he was at the White House preparing for, ironically enough, a speech on gun safety. He then changed plans, made an unscheduled trip back to Wilmington, Delaware. He embraced his son on the tarmac that you see there. The family spent last night in Wilmington. And then the president will fly this morning to Italy and the G7. And I have reporting that in recent weeks ahead of the trial, President Biden made the point, Joe, that you did, saying that if he weren't running for reelection, he believed that Hunter would have gotten that plea deal, that plea deal that fell apart last summer at the last moment, that plea deal which would have kept Hunter Biden out of prison. And now we shall see. But he could face a lengthy prison time, possibly, depending what the judge decides. And in terms of the fallout going forward, first and foremost, this is a personal toll on President Biden.

We know how close he is to his son. He texts and calls him each and every day. Aides worry about that both on this overseas trip and as sentencing approaching. As far as the politics, which we'll dive into later, campaign aides, both for Biden and Trump, don't think this will change the trajectory of the race. But they do suspect it will be a flashpoint come their first debate where Donald Trump may make some very personal, ugly attacks at President Biden. We should expect President Biden to stay. You know, there's some aides want him to even flash a temper there and say, look, I'm a father. This is my son. This is inappropriate. Thinking that could resonate with voters.

It would be because it would be a very real human response. And the Biden campaign, as a final point, they are going to continue using nomenclature like convicted felon to describe Donald Trump. They're not going to back away from that because Donald Trump's on the ballot. Hunter Biden is not. Let's be very clear about this. In the debate, because I've heard a lot of people

talking about this concern. Mike Barnicle, if I'm Joe Biden and I'm on the debate stage with Donald Trump and he starts talking about Hunter Biden as some some sort of retort against his own 34 felonies, I'd stop, I'd turn, I'd look around the stage. Excuse me. Hold on. Hold on. I don't see Hunter Biden up here. Hold on, Donald. Let me check. Maybe I don't see Eric over there. Wait, wait. Eric's not here. So I'm not running against Eric. I'm running against you, Donald. And you're not running against Hunter Biden or the ghost of Hunter Biden, who's not here. You're running against me. And up here, the two people that are going to run this country for the next four years.

Of the two of us, only one has been convicted of a felony. And you've been convicted of 34 felonies, Donald. So let's leave our kids out of this. Let's leave our family out of this. You don't want me to start talking about what you and your kids and your in-laws did in your name to get rich off of your back during the presidency. Boom. That's Saudi Arabia ends it, ends it. And you know what? He shouldn't take any crap from Trump and he needs to be ready because Donald Trump has 34 felony convictions. Joe Biden, none. Those are the two people on stage. And he shouldn't.

Biden's people should double down right now and go harder at Trump than ever before on the fact he's a convicted felon. Well, if that happens, if it occurs during the course of that debate in two weeks that Donald Trump does say something about Hunter Biden. In addition to saying what you just said, it might be best if he reprised Joseph, not Joseph McCarthy, but the lawyer, Mr. Welch, Robert Welch, Mr. Welch, in the McCarthy hearings, turning to Joe McCarthy and saying, have you no sense of decency, sir?

And in this case, he could turn to Donald Trump and say, not only have you no sense of decency, sir, but do you realize that the office of the president of the United States is not built around a thirst for revenge? It's not built around a thirst for going after every opponent who said something negative in your perception about you during your presidency or during your life today. It's not about that. It's about the country. It's about not damaging the country with the kind of language and behavior that you have exhibited nearly every day of your adult life. Yeah, that's true. While the Trump campaign decried the former president's guilty verdict, they were quick to call Hunter Biden's conviction a distraction from Joe Biden's alleged crimes.

Meanwhile, on the Hill, most Republicans touted the party line that there is a two-tiered system of justice in this country. Joining us now, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale. Ali, what are we hearing from Republicans now? It's exactly that, Mika, and it's what we expected because we've been asking Republicans, especially those in the House, consistently throughout the Hunter Biden trial, what they think about this and if it assuages any concerns that they have, unfounded as they might be, about a two-tiered system of justice.

Listen to what they said. You'll find this does not assuage them. Watch. Well, first, let's remember this was Joe Biden's corrupt DOJ that tried to negotiate a sweetheart plea deal with outside immunity unrelated to this case. There are two tiers of justice. And again, they wanted to let him off of everything. Do you think that the Department of Justice is still weaponized against conservatives, even though we see this verdict here today?

Absolutely. When they tell school moms that they're domestic terrorists because they don't like what's being taught in their classroom and other things, we can go into it. But I still do think they are. Yes, ma'am. This is going to be, guys, I think yet another moment where we watch Republicans say things publicly, forcefully with cameras in front of them. And then we listen to a more nuanced approach behind the scenes, sources, operatives, all of these people who are involved in the presidential election and all of these various races up and down the ballot. And one of those told our colleague John Allen,

this verdict makes it less of a bumper sticker issue in their minds and takes some of the momentum out of Trump's sails to be able to say that the Justice Department is only being weaponized against him. Now, clearly, we're seeing that. And I think the other fascinating thing is, and we'll get more of this as we're able to talk to more voters,

there are going to be those Republican voters who agree with exactly what those congressmen and senators said in that clip that we showed. They are going to toe the party line. This is exactly what they expected. It's politics, pure and simple. But then there are also going to be those people, and I know the Biden campaign thinks this too, who have the reaction that we saw some voters in Bucks County, Pennsylvania have to one of our embeds yesterday, saying that this man, Hunter Biden, has been through a lot, that they felt sad watching this prosecution. That's going to be something that plays out over the course of the next few months. But I think you're right to underscore the reality of this, which is that while Hunter has always been wrapped up in his father's reelection efforts, and certainly the Trump campaign is going to

continue to hammer that, it is so far from being the same thing. The prosecutions and legal troubles of Hunter Biden are just shades of different than the prosecutions, verdicts and criminal and criminal penalties and felonies of the man who's trying to be the Republican nominee and once again be the president, Donald Trump. Yeah, you know, it's so interesting that, you know, I've talked over the past couple days about how this disinformation on Joe Biden and somehow that he's lost it always accrues to Joe Biden's advantage

because he outperforms. And so Republicans are actually hurting themselves. I think of Marjorie Taylor Greene holding up pictures of Hunter Biden at his very lowest when he was on crack, when he was undressed and holding that up to give Americans a view of just how low Hunter Biden sunk. And I remember in the first debate, we talked about how the first debate was so bad for Donald Trump. It's bad for Donald Trump in large part because he went after Hunter Biden. And I had a court heard a chorus of conservative voices, hard right conservative voices who hated Joe Biden's politics right after that,

about how deeply offended they were that someone went after a child. Because guess what? We all have children. Children all have challenges to varying degrees. And every parent, whether they're Republican, Democratic or independent. They understand that. And Katty K, when we see these pictures of Hunter Biden now after the conviction, going around, hugging everybody, cheering them up, cheering them up, being the one to say it's going to be OK, hugging his father in an embrace that is so moving.

Not everybody works on a political campaign or works on a cable news show. The voters who are going to decide this can see into the eyes of these people. They can see them together. They can see the love in this family and come to the same conclusion that that juror came to, Caddy, which is this is a man who's been through so much. Look at him now. Look at where he has come. And anyone who wants to beat the shit out of a man who has been struggling through addiction and has come out on the other side, man, that's somebody who is going to gain the wrath of a lot of voters. This is a losing issue. I've said it before. I'll say it again. This is a losing issue for Donald Trump on any

debate stage. Yeah, I mean, there's something awfully poignant about Joe Biden saying that if he had not made this decision to run for president again, then he doesn't think that his son would even have gone to trial, let alone being convicted. And, you know, the weight of that, I mean, God forbid, if he were then to lose in November, what's he going to feel as a father that he, you know,

ran and his son potentially has to go to jail. So there's an awful kind of Shakespearean tragedy quality to the Biden family after the from the crash onwards. But I think you're right in terms of the voters who will make up their decisions late in this campaign, the voters who are kind of rather dismissively called low information voters don't tend to be voters who are focused very much on policies that are dear to them early on necessarily or party issues that are dear to them necessarily or even kind of be particularly by the very nature of the fact that they could go either way. They're not massively partisan. So what are the things and I keep thinking about this, what are the things that are going to make those voters decide in the end? They know all

about Joe Biden. They know all about Donald Trump. It is potentially something personal, something emotional, something like a father hugging his son. And I and I think that it'll be a tough for Donald Trump to take on Hunter Biden. Come the debates because exactly because of what you say. This is the kind of thing if we're trying to think what is it that's going to push somebody one way or the other when they wake up in the morning on Election Day, they may not even have decided. Could it be that kind of an emotional thing of that relationship? Lisa Rubin, where does this go for Hunter Biden in terms of legally sentencing and other decisions on his fate and appeal?

Well, first, Mika, we have to get to the sentencing. And that is generally anywhere between, let's say, two to three months to four months out from the jury verdict. After the sentencing, Hunter Biden will have 14 days to serve a notice of appeal. And when we think about what kind of issues he might appeal, I think the biggest one is the constitutional question. And that's a statute that basically says that someone who is a user of, or has been addicted to, a controlled substance, a stimulant, a narcotic,

can't be in possession of a gun. And obviously there's a required question that's related to that on the form. There is a case that's currently percolating through the federal courts. It was decided by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. There is a fully briefed petition to the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of that very statute. And guess who brought that petition for certiorari? It's Joe Biden's Department of Justice. So when people say Joe Biden is not a decent man, he's a person who reappointed the U.S. attorney investigating his son, told another media outlet he wouldn't pardon his son and is defending the constitutionality of one of the very statutes under which his son was just convicted.

That's not a person who doesn't believe in the rule of law. That is a person who is standing between the rule of law and something far more pernicious. And Hunter Biden, by the way, has that tax trial also coming up in September. So it's not over for him in terms of his legal troubles. Ali Vitale, we heard a reaction from not so much Donald Trump yesterday, but the campaign saying that this wasn't the real issue, the real issue. And then they throw up that smokescreen about Ukraine and Russia and China and the Biden crime family. They've decided again that somehow that the president of the United States, who they describe as feeble and addled, is also the mastermind behind an international crime syndicate. So that they say now is the

issue. But when you look at those issues, Republicans have walked away from their impeachment hearings and their effort to impeach this president of the United States. So in the Congress that you cover every day, what comes next? Are they still pursuing this? We've heard from James Comer about all this smoke with no fire. There hasn't been fire for years now. Where are they going with this, if anywhere? We've watched House Republicans specifically use their majority and use their gavel power to be the front line of defense for the former president on this.

And I share your confusion, Willie, on how current President Biden can be both the puppet master of everything in the universe and also too feeble to make it between a podium and his office. I also struggle with the comparison that the Trump campaign continues to make there. But look, we've watched and will continue to watch the ways that James Comer, who you mentioned, but also Jim Jordan, who's the head of both the Weaponization of Government Committee, which I admit has been pretty quiet lately, and then the House Judiciary Committee, which has been much more active in trying to mount these investigations to muddy the water around all of the legal issues surrounding Donald Trump. They will do that in perhaps their most explosive fashion sometime next month. Right now, it looks like July 12th, the day after Trump's sentencing in Manhattan. They will have the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, come before them, testify in public fashion.

That is something members of that committee have wanted for months. They've been demanding documents to that effect. When the attorney general himself was before Congress just last week or two weeks ago, this was one of the central issues that they tried to press him on. They did not get what they wanted in terms of being able to underscore and find evidence of a two-tiered system of justice or a weaponization of the Justice Department. But nevertheless, they will continue trying. And I think that's what the Trump campaign is going to continue leaning on, this quote-unquote evidence that Congress has unearthed that doesn't do the job of being the evidence that they need it to be to support these theories of why Donald Trump is in the legal trouble that he is, when the reality is, of course, Donald Trump is in the legal trouble that he is,

when the reality is, of course, that he's in the legal trouble he is because of his own actions that jurors have found to be credible. I think the other thing, though, that strikes me in this conversation as we talk about the role of families in campaigns—and I've done several of these, and I know you guys have, too—is, as reporters, if kids of candidates wade into the politics of it and are out on the campaign trail and are campaigning in the fashion that I think we've all become accustomed to in the Trump era, where the kids are literally serving in the administration, they are out on the road, they are making endorsements. Donald Trump Jr., for example, has become a real figurehead within the MAGA movement.

Those are the people that you cover then as if they are adjacent to candidates. When you have family members who are taking steps back, who are not overtly in the politics of it, they are not supposed to be treated the same. And of course, we're watching this leveling of the playing field right now in 2024, but this is not the way it usually is. Great point. NBC's Ali Vitale and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, thank you both very much for your coverage this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe on the heels of the Wall Street Journal publishing a, let's just say, questionable piece on President Biden's mental acuity. We're digging into new reporting about another media outlet pushing deceptive attacks on Biden's age. Plus, one of Donald Trump's former attorneys is voicing

new concerns about what kind of retribution Trump might seek against his political opponents in a second term. That's straight ahead on Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Thirty five past the hour, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is owned by a right wing media mogul, seems to be working hard to push dubious claims about President Biden's mental fitness for office. And they're pushing it to millions of Americans. Aaron Ruppar of Public Notice and Judge Judd Legum of Popular Information highlighted how Sinclair has aggressively worked the claims about Biden's age into dozens of local broadcasts across the country. The stations aired a segment that repackaged a widely criticized Wall Street Journal article that questions Biden's acuity. Local anchors all introduced the segment with a nearly identical script on how the president's mental awareness will affect the upcoming election.

Here are just some of them. The Wall Street Journal calling into question the mental fitness of President Joe Biden. As national correspondent Matt Galka tells us, the issue could decide the election. Wall Street Journal has published a story which calls the mental fitness of President Biden into question. As national correspondent Matt Galka tells us, the issue could be an election decider. Should he be on that or any ballot? The Wall Street Journal is out with new reporting calling into question the mental fitness of President Joe Biden. As national correspondent Matt Galka tells us, the issue could be an

election decider. As the Wall Street Journal is out with reporting calling into question the mental fitness of President Biden. We want to know, are you worried about President Biden's mental fitness? As national correspondent Matt Galka tells us, the issue could be an election decider. As the Wall Street Journal is out with new reporting calling into question the mental fitness of President Joe Biden. And as national correspondent Matt Galka tells us, the issue could be an election decider. I mean, and Willie, the issue here is, of course, local news. I think people trust local news more than they trust national news because they know those news anchors. But it's actually not local reporting.

It's spoon fed from a right wing leadership group that that's spreading disinformation. And and it's, you know, I guess it's just a sign of the times. But again, we talk about pushing back on disinformation. It's pretty tough when that disinformation is coming from local news networks whose bosses willingly want them to spread lies. Yeah. And local news anchors, local newspapers, people trust them. They live in their communities. They're on their TVs every day. And Sinclair owns, I think, almost 200 stations. And as you could probably see there by some of the logos, those were Fox, yes, but

also ABC, CBS, NBC. These are stations that people have on in their living rooms all the time. And it's not unusual for a network to feed to their affiliates national coverage so that they can have they don't all have reporters in Washington and New York. But what is a little unusual here, Jonathan Lemire, is the narrative being pushed so specifically about a piece from another. Well, the not not from Sinclair, but from a Murdoch owned entity in The Wall Street Journal about Joe Biden pushing the story that as we have sort of dissembled over the last couple of weeks is filled with problems. Yeah. And Sinclair has become a rising force in media over the last couple of presidential cycles, as you say, a couple hundred stations there. Polls suggest that Americans trust local news more than national news. So this is probably has an impact. And we saw a little bit in 2020, the Biden campaign tried to flag

moments like this. They're certainly doing it again now, you know, amplifying the good work here done by the reporters who identified this trend. And it's something that also just points to there's a on the right beyond Sinclair includes Fox News and other Murdoch organizations, even those further to the right. They far they're much more so marching in lockstep and sort of touting the party line and agreeing on certain talking points much more so than other what you call more mainstream media or even some of the more liberal media organizations that are out there. And it is something that in a moment is such a fractured media ecosystem does make a

difference. And both campaigns are having challenges with this, that just with fewer eyeballs on what we'd consider traditional media, more and more people getting their media and other sources, including their phones. It's just hard to break through. But it does seem like that Wall Street Journal reporting with all of its flaws is one of those stories that did. And they stand by it. The Wall Street Journal. They know it's a lie. But I mean, Willie, it's a crazy thing about it. They know it's a lie. And how do how do we know they know it's a lie? Because they have the Kevin McCarthy quotes from the actual meeting at the White House that supposedly McCarthy later said showed that he was in a haze. They have the quotes from people around Kevin McCarthy who said, yeah, McCarthy would say that Biden was bonkers publicly,

but then quietly would whisper to us privately what an effective negotiator he was. That was reported in Politico. That was reported in mainstream publications before the Wall Street Journal piece. They know they were spreading a lie at the Wall Street Journal. Those editors knew it. The reporters knew it. They did it anyway. And the only guess I can have is that it came from from above. In fact, outside the Wall Street Journal newsroom, that is the only way to justify that story when you had, as I've said before, as I've said before on this show, you have the Wall Street Journal that's actually been going under new leadership, I think, in a really great direction. So that's just like what which of these don't fit. that story doesn't fit. And and I there are few explanations other than

it came from above and and they were told they had to put it in. And whoever put it in, it's had certainly had the desired effect, which is a couple of weeks of coverage. Now it feeds up as we just saw. The ecosystem feeds into Sinclair, gives them something to talk about. They can kind of use that as their way of telling a story of what they say is Joe Biden's decline. We've heard from Democrats in the last week or so who said they spoke to The Wall Street Journal for that piece and that their views and their quotes were not included in that. So there's been a lot here. The fact of the matter is there are a lot of people in this country, even Democrats, and we know privately who express concerns about Joe Biden's age.

But you can express that and report that in a in a more direct and, shall we say, honest way than it was presented in context, in context to the opponent and his behavior and his fitness. I mean, that would be fair, especially given the shark battery speech that happened at the time. I mean, around the same time, there's a story to be done there about Trump's fitness. I mean, there's so many stories to be done there. And yet President Obama, the Wall Street Journal seems to be inured to it. So coming up, more and more young women are calling dating and in the social media age, a nightmare. We'll dig into a new story for New York Magazine about what's behind the struggle to find the right partner. This is important. This is so important. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. basically what you're saying is 95 of the population is undateable and how are all these people getting together alcohol

that was seinfeld's take on the dating world back in the 90s. It sounds like Scott Galloway right there. Yeah. 95, winner takes all. It seems things have only become more bleak in the age of social media and a lot of other things. In a new piece for New York magazine's The Cut entitled, Is Dating a Total Nightmare for You Right Now? Several women talk about why they feel dating is nearly impossible these days. Joining us now, features editor at The Cut, Catherine

Thompson, also with us, professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway. And Scott, we've heard you talk a lot about some of the underlying causes to this one problem, which branches out to, we're worried about all of our young causes to this one problem, which branches out to we're worried about all of our young people. But Catherine, I'll start with you. I want to know more about what inspired this piece. Anecdotally, I'm hearing from a lot of young women who want to date young men. The simple answer to that is there are none. They say there are none. Why is that? What's behind it? Hey, Mika, thank you for having me.

I mean, this piece came about in the way that a lot of our best stories do, which is that we were just seeing a lot of chatter online, specifically around TikTok videos of women in their late 20s, early 30s, crying into the camera about how fed up they are with the dating scene and about the lack of connection that they feel when they go on dates with men. I should emphasize that, you know, we are talking here about women who are seeking men as partners.

Correct. And they feel like, sure, they're going out meeting people through dating apps, for example, but they're just not making it past early dates, forging a deeper connection with the people that they meet. And what we heard a lot of is that they just felt that the men that they were going out with did not share their priorities. And what were the what did they say about the young men that they tried to have relationships with? What was what was the description of of what you say they feel they didn't have the same priorities? What were their priorities? Well, these women have spent a lot of time and effort focusing on their career and are now at a place in their life where they want to settle down with a partner who, you know, perhaps

wants marriage, perhaps wants kids. But across the board, what they're finding is that the men they're going on dates with just do not want to form a long-term relationship and are not looking for a deeper connection. A lot of the women felt that they were being strung along just for sex and not for a deeper emotional connection. You know, Scott, the first time I think I saw you talking, it was about how dating apps had completely messed things up. You know, sort of a winner take all that 10 percent of the most attractive, successful men were getting 90 percent of the market interested in them. And that created a lot of men, guys that were home, not dating at all. This is a this is an interesting angle, too. And of course, it's all anecdotal, Scott,

but it is so anecdotal. It's kind of like in politics. When I knocked on 10 doors and nine people were telling me the same thing, I knew I didn't have to take a poll. In this case, we have heard from so many young women, college, post-college, you know, why aren't they dating? They say, there are no men out there. What do you mean? There have to be. No, there are no men out there to date. And it's something that is baffling to us because of our experiences growing up in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s. But what's going on there, man? What is going on? Well, first off, good to be with you. And Catherine, congratulations on the article.

So Corrado Gini was an Italian statistician, and he came up with something called the Gini coefficient that measured statistical dispersion to measure a country's income inequality. Zero meant everyone had exactly the same amount of money. One meant one person had all of the money. If you apply the Gini coefficient to online dating, where the majority of relationships of people begin online, it would have the same Gini coefficient for inequality of South Africa or Venezuela. And what I would push back on a little bit, what I hope there's a follow-up article on, is that it's not that these women can't find a man, it's they can't find a man they want to date. And what you have online is a very reductive analysis, and that is men primarily evaluate women on aesthetics and men on their ability to signal resources. And that's the bad news.

For men, though, they have a more porous filter. They find more women attractive. Women have a much finer filter for who they find attractive. So the majority of women are all showing their attention to a small number of men. 50 men on Tinder, 50 women. 46 of the women will show all of their attention to just four men. The result is, if you're in the top 10% of men in terms of attractiveness, you get tremendous inbound opportunities. And quite frankly, that doesn't lead to good behavior. I would describe it as Porsche polygamy, and that's what the article is about. But let's be clear, it's pretty bad for all parties involved here. A man has to swipe, of average attractiveness, has to swipe right 115 times to get one coffee.

And then four of those five coffees will ghost him. So the average man has to swipe right 500 times to get one coffee. So, Scott, as you lay out, the way mates used to meet was through work, through friends, through going out socially, maybe meet somebody at a bar. You meet them at school, of course, was another way. But that seems to have gone away. We're still going to those places and doing those things for the most part. So why has that receded so much? That's exactly right.

You're getting to the core of the issue. And that is, if you talk to couples who have been married 50 years, 70% of those couples or more will say that one partner initially was not as interested in the other. And it was usually the woman who wasn't as interested in the man, because again, see above a finer filter. But over time, that man got to demonstrate excellence. He was kind. I liked the way he smelled. He performed well at work. He was smart. He was good to his parents. And the places that men could demonstrate that excellence, a religious institution, work, school, a bar, young people aren't going out or going to these places nearly as much. So essentially, there's no place for people to fall in love. It's an immediate reaction, a reductive analysis of whether they're in lust at that moment. The result is just a skyrocketing

level of loneliness, a lack of household formation. And for young men, it's a disaster. Here's a stat. Two and three women under the age of 30 are in a relationship. Only one in three men under the age of 30. Why? Women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. The result is a cohort of young men that don't have a guardrail of a relationship, which is more important for men than women. Women maintain strong financial, professional, and platonic networks.

Men come off the rails without the guardrail and the motivation of a relationship. I would push back, though, on this notion that women are not necessarily going out to, you know, bars or, you know, pursuing run clubs, tennis leagues, volunteering, other real world activities where theoretically they could meet a like-minded individual who shares their values. A lot of these women who spoke to us are doing that and still have not met a partner that they feel shares their priorities. And what we heard over and over from the women we

spoke to is that they find it very patronizing and unhelpful to be told that, you know, all they need to do to find their person is to get off the apps and get out there in real life and, you know, strike up a conversation at a coffee shop, in a grocery store. One of the women we spoke to is trying to do that more in hopes that she will strike up some connections. But that is not a solution that is going to necessarily work for everyone. And women are trying to meet people in real life because nobody is satisfied with the state of being on the dating apps right now. This is exactly why we want this discussion with these two specific guests, because it's so critically important. And we are hearing, again, this too, that even for young

women who are going out trying to find men, the question always comes back, where are they? Right. Where are the men? After the break, I want to ask Scott about the status of young men today and some of the challenges they're facing. We're going to continue this incredible conversation. It's really important after a quick break. We'll be right back. Rudy's mugshot from his indictment in Arizona was just released. This is real. Take a look at this. A lot of people are making fun of the picture, but some have come out to support Rudy. from his indictment in Arizona was just released. This is real. Take a look at this. Oh. Now, a lot of people were making fun of the picture,

but some have come out to support Rudy. Really? Yeah. For instance, Mr. Burns from The Simpsons said, I think he looks good. Then Uncle Joey's puppet, Mr. Woodchuck from Full House, said, yeah, why are people making fun of him? And Danny DeVito as the Penguin said, seems like a perfectly good picture to me. Gollum, Gollum from the Lord of the Rings said, don't listen to the haters. It's a nice photo.

And finally, this guy said, could have been worse. And you go, yeah, come on. this guy said could have been worse. Welcome back. It's the top of the second hour of Morning Joe. We have a lot to get to this hour. The latest on the guilty verdicts in Hunter Biden's trial. Also, Donald Trump's revenge tour and more on how many believe he will take revenge against his opponents or anybody who made him angry if he wins a second term in office in the presidency. But we're going to continue our conversation that we just left before the break with features editor at The Cut, Catherine Thompson and professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway. The touch off was the headline and the story about dating today and why

young women are finding it to be so difficult and they're giving up. And Catherine, the article explores why dating today is so difficult. This article also really gives us a picture of what all young people are facing today in terms of challenges, severe challenges and a loneliness epidemic. But in the piece, quote, each woman offers different theories on why dating is such a drag right now. Taylor blames technology and Spencer finds men her age are more interested in getting bleep faced in New York City every weekend than in committing to a relationship. The article continues. Haas is concerned about the online network of men's rights activists who want to turn guys against women. The one common thread throughout these conversations, though, is that women believe their romantic priorities are fundamentally different

from those of guys their age. That may not be a new problem, but it feels especially pressing in the age of Andrew Tate and swiping left. So given that, Scott Galloway, can you give us a sense, especially from your research, as to the state of young men today and the challenges they are facing and the changes you're seeing, the trends in terms of their behavior? Well, the trends are nothing short of incredibly discouraging. Four times as likely to kill themselves as women. Three times as likely to be addicted.

Twelve times as likely to be incarcerated. You have three million able-bodied men between the ages of 20 and 45 who are no longer even seeking work. One in three men under the age of 30 hasn't had sex in the last year. And we hear the word sex, and our brain fires a bunch of different places. But think of it as just a key step to a loving, secure relationship. So what we have is the largest cohort of lonely, broke young men. And that's the most dangerous person on the planet. When women don't have opportunities for a romantic relationship, I'm not suggesting

their loneliness is any less tragic, but they tend to maintain a friend network. They tend to maintain professional trajectory. It ends up that men without the prospect of a romantic relationship just have worse outcomes than women. And again, I'm not saying that the problem is any less dire for women, but the stats are pretty overwhelming. In urban cities, women are now making more than men. Scott, how did we get here, man? Scott, how did we get here? Like, you know, I mean, I'm old.

I understand I'm old, but even people younger than me, it wasn't that long ago that there were functioning relationships. Like you've said, you go to church or you go to school or you go to community events, you go to sports events, you go, whatever. How did we get here that it is so bleak for men on one point and for women socially. It's a variety of reasons. One, if we're going to have an honest conversation about mating, we have to have an honest conversation.

Women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. And when the pool of horizontally and up shrinks every year because men aren't doing as well economically and women are doing better, and by the way, we should do nothing to get in the way of women doing better economically. There are just fewer and fewer. The pool of potential mates that women are interested in shrinks every year. And then it's speedballed by what I would say is the real culprit here. And that is the deepest resourced, most talented companies and people in the world want to convince men that they can have a reasonable facsimile of

life on a screen with an algorithm. You don't need friends. Go on Discord or Reddit. You don't need to get a job. Just go on Coinbase or Robinhood and trade crypto or stocks. And you don't need to go through the effort and develop the skills and a plan and shower for God's sakes to go out and be attractive to potential mates. You can just go on a porn site. So what we have is a group of people, men who aren't making the effort. And I just want to acknowledge Catherine's point, aren't leaving their house. In addition, one in three relationships used to begin at work. Young people are no longer going into work as often. And if you're a young man at work, are you more or less inclined to express some sort of romantic interest in a potential romantic partner now than 40 years ago?

Catherine, there's so much there in what Scott is saying. We know, for example, that women are now earning more than men in the United States. It's something like a third of women are earning more than men. We know that women are becoming more liberal while men are becoming more conservative. We're seeing that political divergence in the sex. And I just wonder how much all of that divergence is playing into those women who are going to coffee shops, who are going on running groups, trying to find somebody, particularly the money part of it. Nobody really likes to talk about it. But what impact does that

have if they are earning more than the guys around them? Does it make the guys less likely to want to go up and approach them as a potential romantic partner? Well, I should note, we spoke to a slice of women who are dealing with this issue. And I would say that none of them explicitly brought up that the issue that they had with the men that they were meeting is that they didn't have a good enough job or weren't making enough money. That is not the main complaint that we heard. The main complaint that we heard is that the men that they were meeting just did not want a relationship, wanted to keep things open, or just were not giving as good conversationally and emotionally as the women felt that they were giving their dates.

Politics, though, did come up in a few conversations. A few of the women we spoke to felt that they were really turned off by a few dates where the men, in one instance, somebody denigrated the Black Lives Matter movement and the woman pushed back on that and the man didn't receive it well. And that made her swear off going on dates with men for about eight months. So that is a hyper specific anecdote. But there is certainly something to, you know, the research indicating that women are becoming more liberal while men are becoming more conservative. But again, that can't explain the full extent of this disconnect. That is not something that everybody is experiencing when they go on a date. That seems to be pretty experience specific. I think the common word here is remote. Everything is remote. The guys don't go out. You do work remotely.

You even socialize remotely if you socialize. I mean, it is a huge societal problem that is leading to mental health problems. And I appreciate you both addressing different angles of this. They're all incredibly important. And we would like to have you back. And we're going to do a morning Mika episode on this exact issue. The entire show. The new piece for the cut entitled is dating a total nightmare for you right now. It's online now. Features editor for the cut. Catherine Thompson. Thank you so much. Scott Galloway. Thank you. Thank you as well. Scott's new book, by the way. It's fantastic. It is. It's entitled The Algebra of Wealth. That is a fabulous read as well.